


High Eye

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Mark of the Horse Lord - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, POV Animal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She could hear High Eye as she approached the round structure. He made a strange loud sound over and over. She thought of mourning doves and wolves, but he did not quite sound like either. ... He was on his knees and had his face in his hands. Under the flower-smells he always put all over himself he smelled like he was badly hurt. He smelled like salt too.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Eye

Prey smell. Mouse. Flicker of grey movement in grass.

Crouch. Muscles bunching. Tail switching, dispelling excess tension.

Launch. Pounce.

Bat bat bat between her forepaws. Frightened mouse, seeking escape in vain. Then it sagged in exhaustion and the sport was gone. She ripped into its underbelly with relish. Fat and delicious, grain still in its gut. Always such mice to be had where there were many two-legses, no matter how heat-blasted or drought-withered the fields and the forests.

Sated, she gathered head and tail in her mouth. Gift for High Eye. He would not eat it, of course. Two-legses hunted bigger beasts to feed their bigger bodies. But High Eye would know she had had good luck in her own hunt and that she had remembered him. He might feed her a bit of meat from his own hand that night when he sat with his own kind, her on his shoulder, in the big round structure with its dry-heather top.

It had rained hard in the night. Now the air was clear and clean and the sun bright. Plovers cried, gulls screamed. Plovers were delicious too. She had never had a gull.

She could hear High Eye as she approached the round structure. He made a strange long loud sound over and over. She thought of mourning doves and wolves, but he did not quite sound like either.

She could smell him too, and other living two-legses. Mostly she smelled death. High Eye was alive, so the death was not terribly important. But she was curious. 

Six two-legses stood before the round structure. There were the older ones, Short Leg and Brow Scar and Much Fur. There were the younger ones, Frog Mouth and Big Shoulders and Swift Hand. They all between them carried a flat thing. On the flat thing was a dead two-legs.

Even before she saw him, she knew it was Red Fur. He lay on his back. The covering over his breast had blood on it. His face touched his shoulder in a bad way.

High Eye made the noise again. He was on his knees and had his face in his hands. Under the flower-smells he always put all over himself he smelled like he was badly hurt. He smelled like salt too. 

She slunk toward him and sat and lay the mouse head and tail on the ground. He had stopped making the loud long noise and now made softer, faster ones, like a capercaillie or a pheasant. His shoulders heaved. His face was wet. The other two-legses were silent. She could smell the hurt-smell on them, too, along with their sweat.

She sat before High Eye for a long moment, regarding him. He did not see her. She rose and rubbed against his side.

"Oh, Shan," High Eye said. It was not really her name, of course, but the two-legses did not speak her tongue, nor she theirs. She pushed her head against the back of his hand. He turned it and let her push her head into his palm.

She leapt onto his shoulders and settled around them. He stroked her haunch. Then he stood, slowly, and began to speak loudly to the other two-legses. His voice carried far. It rose and fell like the wind. She felt each rise and fall through his back.

She nuzzled her face into his long pale fur. High Eye was speaking in a way that two-legses often spoke just before, or while, they all got together, dozens of them, and ate lots of roast cow and pig and drank lots of fermented things. That happened too when a two-legs died, sometimes. She thought about several nights of sitting on High Eye's shoulder while he hand-fed her cow and pig. It made her happy. She rubbed her face against High Eye's neck and began to purr.

**Author's Note:**

> Conory - High Eye  
> Gault - Short Leg  
> Dergdian - Brow Scar  
> Aluin - Much Fur  
> Brys - Frog Mouth  
> Niall - Swift Hand  
> Finn - Big Shoulders  
> Phaedrus - Red Fur


End file.
